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In an unprecedented joint appearance, Colombia’s president Juan Manuel Santos and FARC supreme leader ‘Timoschenko’ met with their respective delegations in Havana, September 23, to present a “Special Jurisdiction for Peace”. The common statement on the first detailed modalities on transitional justice marks the most important breakthrough in the peace negotiations since they have begun in October 2012. It also sets a final date to formally end the longest-running armed conflict in the Western hemisphere with a peace agreement within the next six months.

Most importantly, the “Joint Declaration No. 60” establishes a transitional judicial mechanism including two organs: a “Chamber of Justice” and a “Tribunal for Peace”. Both entities will be integrated primarily by Colombian judges with a “minor participation of international judges that fulfil the highest prerequisites”. The primary functions of the Special Jurisdiction for Peace are to end impunity, obtain the truth, contribute to the reparation of the victims and judge and impose sanction for those responsible of serious crimes committed in the armed conflict. The emphasis will be put on the most serious and representative crimes as well as guarantees of non-repetition.

The Special Jurisdiction for Peace has the competence over all actors that participated in direct or indirect way in the armed conflict, including members of the FARC and agents of the state for crimes “committed in the context and because of the conflict”. The transitional justice scheme establishes differentiated treatment between those that recognize truth and responsibility and those that don’t or do it belatedly.

The Special Jurisdiction for Peace also grants a “most comprehensive amnesty for political and related crimes”. Although the related crimes have yet to be defined specifically in a domestic law, it is already clear that these will include the typical political crimes such as rebellion, sedition and riot. Amnesties could also include homicides or injuries caused to combatants and minor infractions of international humanitarian law committed during armed confrontations. The president of the Colombian Supreme Court stated that related crimes might also be crimes of drug trafficking. The law must determinate the exact scope.

For those considered the most responsible for serious international crimes (including war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide) and recognize their responsibilities, the sanction will have a component of “restriction of liberties and rights”, guaranteeing reparative and restorative functions through the “realization of works and activities that satisfy the rights of the victims”. These sanctions will have a minimum of 5 years and a maximum of 8 years of “effective restriction of liberty, in special conditions”. Accused persons that recognize their responsibility belatedly will be sanctioned with ordinary incarceration (jail) between five and eight years. Those who don’t collaborate and result guilty may end behind bars up to 20 years in ordinary justice conditions. The alternative treatment is only accessible for those commiting themselves to re-socialization through (communitarian) “work, capacitation and studies” during the time they remain deprived of liberty.

In the case of FARC commanders and combatants, special and alternative judicial treatment is reserved under the condition of a gradual disarmament that has to start 60 days after the signing of a final peace agreement, ergo no later than 23 May 2016.

The Special Jurisdiction for Peace fulfils Colombia’s international obligations under international criminal law, international human rights law, international humanitarian law and its own domestic provisions. An effective punishment for those who committed the gravest international crimes further debilitates the arguments of the critics and enemies of the peace process, particularly the far-right opposition of Álvaro Uribe (Centro Democrático), Alejandro Ordóñez (Inspector General) and some parts of the Conservative Party or other right-wing elements in civil society.

The transitional justice preliminary agreement can also be expected to be considered in conformity with the Rome Statute by the Office of the Prosecutor of the ICC. Fatou Bensouda, ICC’s chief prosecutor, has always insisted on an effective sanction for those crimes the ICC has complementary jurisdiction for. The duration of sanctions (five to eight years) correspond with similar sanctions for paramilitaries during the controversial but valid Justice and Peace Law demobilization process in 2005. In several preliminary examination reports by the Office of the Prosecutor in the last years, these laws have been considered valid under international criminal law. It is therefore most likely that the Prosecutor in The Hague, along with the overwhelming majority of international state and non-state actors, will endorse this preliminary agreement.

The Special Jurisdiction for Peace accord clarifies some very crucial aspects of the future Colombian transitional justice scheme. Nevertheless, there are many important issues left that remain unspecified or omitted. First, the joint declaration does not specify the exact weighting and ratio of Colombian and international judges. Secondly, the selection progress and the appointment of the jurists for the mainly national ad-hoc entity are not clear yet. Thirdly, the declaration does not specify the controversial definition of “those most responsible” for international crimes. The selection criteria remain open. The jurisdiction will sanction “those responsible for grave crimes” and “particularly the gravest and representative crimes” but until now, it is not said if this formula may include middle-rank commanders or low-rank combatants that were indirectly involved in international crimes. Lastly, whilst the restriction of liberties is relatively specific, the term “restriction of rights” is not. In particular, the participation in politics and the modalities of transformation of an illegal armed group into a legal political party are still under discussion.

The joint declaration and historic handshake between Santos and ‘Timochenko’ mark a never-seen-before breakthrough on the road towards a peace agreement, to be signed during the next six months. The preliminary agreement on transitional justice and victims’ rights finally makes the peace process virtually irreversible. It can be considered a huge step for transitional justice and the rights for victims of international crimes and armed conflict, first and foremost for Colombia but also for the international community.

Amidst two and half years of negotiating a framework for a peace agreement in Havana, the process is facing its most serious challenge after the temporal hostage taking of General Alzate in November 2014. On April 15 around midnight, an intensive combat between military forces and the FARC column “Miller Perdono” took place in La Esperanza/Buenos Aires (Cauca Department) that reportedly killed eleven Colombian soldiers, one FARC guerillero, and injured at least 21 combatants.

As to date, there has been no neutral observation and investigation in the field to examine the bloodshed and reports about the facts remain highly controversial and contradictory. According to official sources provided by the military and the Governor of the Cauca Department Temístocles Ortega, Colombian soldiers were attacked by surprise in a deliberate ambush with explosives, grenades and firearms. A spokesperson of the “Fuerza de Tarea Apolo” battalion stated that the armed forces were conducting “operations of territorial control to guarantee the security of the civil population”. Consequently, this would constitute a blatant breach of the unilaterally declared cease-fire four months ago by the FARC.

A guerilla spokesperson in Havana, senior commander ‘Felix Alape’, however denied the accusation and claimed that the combat was a “legitimate action” due to the “incoherence” of the military to order “military action against a guerilla in a state of truce”. Testimonies given by inhabitants of the village of La Esperanza and the Colombian NGO “Frente Amplio por la Paz” claimed that militaries had established a base in a public area to conduct anti-narcotic and anti-guerilla operations in the area. They further rejected the official governmental version of a unilateral attack. Nevertheless, the huge disparity of the casualties could be an indication for a planned assault by the guerilla.

It also remains unclear – in case of unilateral attack – whether the combats were undertaken upon command by the guerillas’ general secretariat to pressure for a bilateral truce or an uncoordinated ambush of the local FARC column. Inconsistent declarations about the ground facts by governmental, local and guerilla forces illustrate the urgent need for an impartial observation team that investigates the cruel events. As the International Crisis Group suggests, this could be conducted by a mutually trusted actor such as the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) or by agents of Cuba and Norway, the accompanying partners of the peace process.

As Ariel Ávila, researcher of the Colombian think-tank Fundación Paz y Reconciliación, points out, a unilateral cease-fire is very difficult to verify and the temporal suspension of bombarding FARC camps did not include the full cessation of hostilities. The incidents show the difficulties of negotiating in between of hostilities and without a clearly defined bilateral cease-fire, as FARC, leftist parties and some civil society groups demand it.

However, this doesn’t seem likely at the moment as President Santos is facing more pressure after the violent confrontation. Instead, he ordered the renewal of aerial shelling and also insinuated an eventual time limit for the peace process. A fixed deadline for the process however, could further threaten the peace negotiations as the most difficult issues such as transitional justice, the abandonment of weapons and the conditions for a final ceasefire remain on the table.

Other peace processes in the world suggest that the period to achieve a negotiated agreement lasts considerably more than two or three years. It took the Guatemalan parties to the conflict nine years of negotiation after an armed conflict of approximately 20 years and their Salvadorian neighbors eight years after twelve years of civil war to reach a peace contract. For both the government and the FARC rebels, it is important now to renew their commitments for peace and to show real and visible efforts, for example in pursuing the path of humanitarian demining and acknowledge their involvement in serious crimes. The plenipotentiaries of the government and the guerilla alike could accelerate the process and rebuild trust in discussing the modalities for the selection of the most serious crimes and get closer in their diverging views on alternative punishment and deprivation of liberty for those most responsible of capital crimes. It remains clear, that after roughly half a century of armed confrontation, trust building measures are crucial for the successful continuation of the negotiation. Renewed confidence is essential, not only between the adversaries but particularly to reassure the Colombian people their commitment to peace.

In a televised speech on March 10, Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos ordered the temporal suspension of air raids against the FARC. The decision came after Colombians biggest guerilla group had declared a unilateral and indefinite cease-fire in December 2014 that, according to governmental sources and non-governmental organizations, was maintained so far.

The Colombian delegation and the FARC plenipotentiaries also announced a joint effort of the Armed Forces and local guerilla forces to begin to identify and eliminate anti-personnel mines in rural areas of the country. To facilitate such operations, the government will lift arrest warrants for FARC combatants willing to collaborate without uniforms and weapons. Norwegian People’s Aid, a NGO with vast experience in demining activities will accompany the parties.

Both announcements come in a time of accelerated mutual trust-building measures between the guerilla movement and the government. After being harshly criticized by the right-wing opposition and national opinion polls showing skepticism towards the peace process, the public opinion meanwhile supports again the negotiations in Cuba. According to freshest opinion polls (Gallup), 72 percent of the Colombians support the peace negotiations and 53 percent do think that they will finally lead to the end of the armed confrontation.

The announcement of a quasi de-facto temporal bilateral cease-fire – a longtime demand by the FARC and leftist political actors in Colombia – came for many as surprise. Until January 2015, President Santos and government chief negotiator De la Calle insisted in negotiating amidst ongoing armed confrontation and so it was agreed between the parties in a joint statement in November 2012. There are several reasons however, that incited the Colombian government to change the strategy.

First, the negotiations have been longer than expected. President Santos must deliver some substantial and visible progress with regard to the so-called desescalamiento (progressive de-escalation) of the conflict. This is both important for his political credibility and to persuade the domestic critics of the peace process that it is worth to negotiate with the FARC.

Second, given that the negotiations on the modalities of transitional justice advance very slowly, the government and the FARC alike are keen to show their commitment towards the Havana process by signaling growing mutual trust. The meeting between high-ranking militaries and the FARC at the negotiation table, which both sides considered “respectful”, underlines this trend.

Third, the Santos government recognizes good-will gestures by the guerilla such as their announcement not to recruit combatants under they age of 17 and to begin to remove anti-personnel mines they installed in huge parts of the national territory. Furthermore, the reduced hostilities between Armed Forces and the FARC guerilla lead to a significant decline of killings related to the conflict. The Colombian NGO Paz y Reconciliación calculated that in 2014, the desescalamiento policies by both sides would have saved more than 1000 lives in comparison with the previous year.

The temporal cessation of aerial attacks on FARC camps is not yet a fully implemented bilateral cease-fire between the belligerent forces. It is a very fragile and delicate matter that may easily be broken. Nevertheless it is obvious that the negotiation process has come to a crucial phase where the incentives to disturb the peace process become lower and the costs to leave the negotiations higher. At the moment, the circumstances are promising that the latest steps may lead to an enduring bilateral cease-fire. This could further facilitate to continue discussing problems of transitional justice, the most complex issues yet to be resolved.

Amidst ongoing protests and increasing casualties in Venezuela, there are easier things to achieve than getting serious, non-biased and verifiable information on the political situation the country is facing at the moment.

While the number of killed individuals after more than two months of protests and ideological confrontation between anti-Government demonstrators and Maduro supporters has risen to 30, it remains difficult to identify the culprits and verify the claims of responsibility for aggressions und human rights violations in the country.

In a State hopelessly divided into two ideological camps with few domestic actors interested in non-ideological and pragmatic problem-solving strategies, the media in Venezuela and at the international level alike struggle to capture the comprehensive picture of the confrontation.

Leading Western media and newspapers, including CNN, CNN en español, El País, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and Le Monde tend to focus their coverage on the demonstrations of oppositional groups. By showing images and videos recorded mostly in media and upper-class neighborhoods, they create an asymmetric picture of what is going on in the Andean-Caribbean country. The Qatar-based TV channel Al Jazeera English joins the pro-opposition camp and shows a clear bias, giving merely voice to the critics of president Maduro and neglecting crimes committed by violent far-right demonstrators.

On the other hand, there is a group of Venezuelan national and international news platforms and broadcasters that greenly adopt the official position and declarations of the socialist government. From the perspective of the state broadcaster Venezolana de Televisión, the international program teleSUR, Hispan TV (Iran), and Russia Today, the underlying reasons behind the protests are clear-cut.

They suspect a U.S. American conspiracy with the Venezuelan far-right destabilizing the regime and preparing a coup d’état to topple president Maduro. Drawing on parallels to 2002, when former president Hugo Chávez was ousted for three days by an U.S. supported coup, they can credibly play the anti-imperialism card. The strategy of Maduro and its media allies is to lump together the non-violent protest movement with those applying Guarimba methods (violent blockades) in order to discredit all oppositional forces as “fascists”.

The ongoing and deepening ideological polarization in Venezuela is being further aggravated by the extremely biased media coverage of the current events in the country. Despite appeals from UNASUR and the OAS to resolve the disputes peacefully, an end of political violence in Venezuela is not in sight at the moment. Both pro-Government and the opposing media should make their contribution by providing a more differentiated and holistic view of what’s going on in the country instead of adding fuel to the fire.